BIA recommends informed stewardship approach to AMR economic model

The UK Bioindustry Association (BIA) has submitted its initial response to Jim O’Neill’s review on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), focusing on his interim report Securing new drugs for future generations: the antibiotics pipeline, published in May 2015.

On the day that AMR takes centre stage at the global biotech conference BIO, Steve Bates, CEO of the BIA, put forward the case that any new economic model should be based on an informed stewardship not restrictive stewardship approach.

Bates said: “The O’Neill review is right to point out that the emergence and spread of bacteria resistant to antibiotics is now recognised as a major threat to medicine. The BIA welcomes the review’s analysis that there needs to be a boost to the development of new antibiotic drugs. But we want to ensure that any new economic model is based on an informed stewardship not restrictive stewardship approach.”

Publishing a new paper written by David Williams, CEO of BIA member Discuva, and John Wain, professor of microbiology at University of East Anglia and CSO at Discuva, the BIA argues that an economic model for securing new drugs for future generations is best delivered through the continuous supply of narrow spectrum antibiotics coupled to rapid diagnostics (to inform treatment) supported by a free market remuneration model.

The paper argues that such a strategy, combined with incentives and reasonable pricing for combination therapy, would allow the world to change from empirically-driven antibiotic monotherapy, where resistance spreads like wild fire, to a more diverse and informed approach where protection from resistance is controlled locally.

Noting the O’Neill review’s ambitious proposal for the development of a global organisation that has the authority and resources to commit lump sum payments to successful drug developers (effectively through a de-linking model) and its call for a $2b global AMR Innovation Fund to help boost funding for blue skies research, Bates added: “The economic model developed to incentivise AMR research must underpin the best approach to tackling resistance in the long term. We welcome the fact that the review team remain committed to further dialogue and will ensure member expertise is made available to them.”